Jack:
There is certainly no chance of your marrying Miss Cardew.
Algernon:
I don’t think there is much likelihood, Jack, of you and Miss Fairfax being united.
Jack:
Well, that is no business of yours.
Algernon:
If it was my business, I wouldn’t talk about it. [Begins to eat muffins.] It is very vulgar to talk about one’s business. Only people like stock-brokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties.
Jack:
How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.
Algernon:
Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.
Jack:
I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.
Algernon:
When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins. [Rising.]
Jack:
[Rising.] Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in that greedy way. [Takes muffins from Algernon.]
Algernon:
[Offering tea-cake.] I wish you would have tea-cake instead. I don’t like tea-cake.
Jack:
Good heavens! I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden.
Algernon:
But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins.
Jack:
I said it was perfectly heartless of you, under the circumstances. That is a very different thing.
Algernon:
That may be. But the muffins are the same. [He seizes the muffin-dish from Jack.]
